The Crash of 2008: Ten Years On

The collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2008 shook the financial sector to its foundations and unleashed a cascading global economic crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression. Ten years later, thanks to a multi-trillion dollar bailout of the failing banks, accompanied by a rejection of parallel assistance to bankrupt homeowners, finance is still dominating the world economy. Our speakers will examine the transformations of the last decade at the national and international levels, and reveal how the Democratic and Republican Parties alike have driven the greatest upward distribution of income to the ultra-rich since the Gilded Age, enriching politicians, as well as top corporate managers. They will ask whether the skyrocketing financial bubble and stagnant real economy will combine to bring about a devastating crash accompanied by an historic depression.

Speakers:

Mark Blyth Eastman Professor of Political Economy, Brown University and author of Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea

Adam Tooze Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History, Columbia University and author of The Wages of Destruction and The Deluge. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World will be published in August of 2018